Workplace

Workplace reinforcing class identites

The workplace in responsible for creating and reinforcing class identities. For example the National Statistics Socio-Economic Scale also known as the NS-SEC sclae, distnguishes individuals based on their occupation.

Even though an indiviual has already been socialised through the family and other agents of socialisation, the workplace is capable for resocialising. For example, if an individual has a new occupation they will learn new norms and values, which could change their view on things as well as changing their way of life. Resocialisation occurs when an individual learns the rules, regulations and associated norms of that certain workplace. This can happen through training courses for new members of staff. Unwritten rules also need to be learnt, this can be done through observing others of through informal discussions with work colleagues.

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The middle classes

Middle classes is a broad term used to describe non-manual workers. Savage (1995) described four distinct types of middle-class groups. These groups were: professionals, managers, self-employed and clerical workers. Professionals, also known as doctors and lawyers, subscribe to an intellectual indetity gained from a long and successful education. Savage claims that they value cultural or capital assests such as knowledge, qualifications, achievement and experience of higher education.

Managers are generally less qualified than professionals and are more likely to have worked their way up in a company.

Self-employed have traditonally been very indivualistic. Surverys suggest that they believe that people should be indepenedent and stand on their own two feet rather than rely on the welfare state. They also have great faith in hard work and discipline.

Clerical workers have traditionally seen as having a middle-class identity as their pay and working conditions were superior to manual workers, however, the introduction of technology has led to their pay and status going into decline. It has now been suggested that they have more in common with the working class. However, surveys show that clerical workers still see themselves as middle-class.